Well, somewhere for them to go would be a nice add-on. Ideally, somewhere they wouldn't have to travel far to reach and wouldn't feel utterly displaced or lost being. Maybe somewhere in Syria, constructed to modern standards with sustainability and low cost of living high priorities, protected by a...

The simple answer is that there is no simple answer. Maybe if we had sent in a massive intervention force after the first revolt*, when most rebels were still moderate, there might have been a chance of a decent, stable government - rather like the first couple of years after Iraq. But, even in that...

Please offer a rigorous definition of 'scientific progress' that has a clear metric that can be measured. No, because you're being overly literal. My point is simply that progress is built upon prior progress, and that advances in complementary technologies do not add but multiply. As others have s...

Rex Tillerson, the president and chief executive of ExxonMobil, has been officially named as Donald Trump’s choice for secretary of state. Tillerson’s confirmation hearings are likely to be a bitter and emotional struggle. He is a recipient of Moscow’s Order of Friendship, having grown close to Put...

Treatid: Definitions don't need to be absolute in some epistemological sense, they only need to be things we agree upon. This is as true of any maths you could come up with as traditional maths, as WibblyWobbly points out. While you're right to say there's no cast iron proof that maths works - given...

Depends how you measure it I guess. The people of 500 years ago were no more capable of creating a self-driving car or putting a man on the moon than those of 100,000 years ago. I'm trying not to read too much into this statement, but taken as read it's an absurdly dismissive viewpoint. The advance...

The scientific method didn't exist 500 years ago, yet people will still far more advanced than primitive man. Depends how you measure it I guess. The people of 500 years ago were no more capable of creating a self-driving car or putting a man on the moon than those of 100,000 years ago. If the scie...

There is no substantive difference between human beings of today and human beings of 100,000 years ago. So why are we so much more advanced than they were? Well, the key difference I'd argue is the discovery and application of the scientific method. It has produced more advances in the last 200 year...

I wouldn't mind if the electoral college wasn't based on the number of residents but the number of people actually casting votes. That might encourage states to knock it off with the voter suppression. First time I've heard that suggestion. It's a very interesting idea. As mail-in and absentee vote...

I'm hoping Trump will be mostly harmless as a president, but I do worry about if there is a major terrorist attack on US soil how badly he might lash out with civil liberty violations and military payback.

UK businesses will have to deal with 60m more pieces of paperwork each year if Britain leaves the customs union as it departs the EU, according to research from a group campaigning to keep trade links with the bloc after Brexit. According to Open Britain, which has support from remain MPs in the th...

I'd describe those places as democracies in name only, and dictatorships in actuality. Turkey flipped from a normal democracy to a 'democracy in name only' only very recently though. And Russia did have a brief period of true democracy. It's a warning to us all to respect the process - whether it's...

The British public will not accept a Brexit deal that leaves them worse off financially, a new poll suggests. In a sign that a majority of the public would be unwilling to accept an economically damaging hard Brexit, half of those who voted to leave the EU [and presumably all of those who voted to ...

That's a fair point. Any cost analysis not taking into account the entire world would be pretty tragic. I didn't mean to suggest doing it for the US alone. The problem is that voters are becoming more insular, not less. Witness Trump and "America First". I really think the only cost analy...

Global warming is going to be bad, and I don't think Tyndmyr is saying otherwise. He's just saying that it will also be costly to revamp the entirety of our energy infrastructure. I don't think anyone here would dispute those two points. The question is which will be more costly? If it's as unbalan...

There's national security reasons for stopping global warming. Exactly. It's a similar argument as to why countries should be self-sufficient for food and energy despite it being more costly than relying on global trade. Except that the coming refugee crisis will be extremely costly in direct terms...

Treatid: Pretty sure I made this point pages ago, but all the whole of maths says is 'if x is true then y is also true'. There's no 'absolutes' anywhere there. They are a figment of your imagination. Maths doesn't even presuppose we all agree on what 'if' means or 'then' or anything else there. Ambi...

Modern Family star Sofia Vergara is being, in effect, sued by two frozen embryos she conceived with the partner she split from, US media report. The embryos, named Emma and Isabella, are listed in Louisiana court documents obtained by the New York Post. She and Nick Loeb separated in 2014 and he ha...

Well, maybe. But then again, why? The problem that we have, that it corrects, isn't getting the groceries to our house, it is the time that it takes to shop at a brick and mortar store. My wife picks up the groceries on the way home. And if you shop for a family, you are more likely to leave with a...

I hope not. My family shops online and picks up the groceries at the curb without ever entering the store. At the curb of the store you mean? In 10-15 years most likely noone will leave the house to pick up online orders; it'll have been driven to your house or place of work by a driverless vehicle...

What is Amazon Go? Amazon Go is a new kind of store with no checkout required. We created the world’s most advanced shopping technology so you never have to wait in line. With our Just Walk Out Shopping experience, simply use the Amazon Go app to enter the store, take the products you want, and go!...

ucim: While I disagree with you in a few aspects (Trump's public attack on Mexicans wasn't solely in regards to them 'taking our jobs', but that 'they are rapists' - clearly pushing a whole different set of buttons) I agree with your overall conclusion. The big lesson I've taken away from the US ele...

Globalisation is a big reason why we've had decades of peace between the superpowers. So long as China's middle and working classes keep growing wealthier, they are hardly going to rock the boat politically*; China's elites want a good working relationship with the US just as ours do with them. Howe...

Rumor has it Trump's team had the Taiwan call planned out as a signal to be a hardliner on China. That seems too Machiavellian for someone who has shown themselves to just say and do the first thing that comes into his head. When you pair the Taiwan gaffe with the India-Pakistan one (tensions betwe...

I find that implausible. I think most of them thought him racist and didn't care. Not everyone thinks not being racist is an important character trait - just like many people don't see not being sexist as an important character trait. Ditto ageist, transphobic etc. Once you get to the smaller -ist's...

Yes. Trump's incompetence with diplomacy, which was obviously going to be the case given his style, is dangerous - and another strong argument for not trusting him with power. Donald Trump looked to have sparked a potentially damaging diplomatic row with China on Friday after speaking to Taiwanese p...

An app that claims to recharge phone batteries in 30 seconds has been publicly endorsed by the Fijian government, despite experts saying it defies the laws of thermodynamics. InstaCharge was launched at a lavish party in Fiji last week, and was lauded by the Fijian prime minister, Frank Bainimarama...

A better argument than "Trust is racist" is "Trump is a self-serving egotist that cannot be trusted. Again and again he has shown he doesn't actually believe what he's saying. He is a multiple bankrupt who promises to make America great again yet screws ordinary Americans to the limit...

A single dose of psilocybin, the active ingredient of magic mushrooms, can lift the anxiety and depression experienced by people with advanced cancer for six months or even longer, two new studies show. Researchers involved in the two trials in the United States say the results are remarkable. The ...

Thing is, if they are worth supporting now, they were worth supporting before. It should not take the threat of leaving to realize that. They do get supported. They get roads, police, fire fighters, an educated workforce etc. etc. all of which is not cheap. They also often get the wages of their wo...

Police are looking for a thief who managed to carry an 86lb bucket of gold flakes worth $1.6m off a truck in New York. Surveillance video showed the theft happened in just 20 seconds while the armoured truck was briefly unattended. The man struggled to carry the gold, taking an hour to lug his loot...

Is that such a problem? If jobs in places with high unemployment (or manufacturing jobs or high-tech jobs or whatever) are better to have around than other kinds of jobs, than what's the problem with a bit of subsidy of tax breaks for them? Absolutely nothing. The problem comes when firms who had n...

The same thing is true for Brexit too of course: 1) Threaten to move abroad due to Brexit whether you actually intend to or not 2) Get some sweetheart deal from Whitehall, either overtly or under the table 3) Get praise from your workers and the wider public for your 'u-turn' 4) Government gets prai...

Trust isn't a binary. And advocates and detractors describe something closer to, trusted or less trusted, rather than trusted and not trusted. That's not at all how it works. Ok, so there's basically three ways for me as a third-party to establish 'truth' over something I have no first-hand knowled...

How does that not fit what I said? People you trusted told you it was true. No. People I didn't trust told me it was true. It's a totally different thing. It's no different to when a sceptic claims a fact that supports global warming, or if a creationist claims something that backs up evolution, or...

Consider how you "know" that Obama isn't a Muslim. It isn't because Obama's birth certificate is on file in Hawaii. It's because trusted sources tell you it's true. That's not how I know it. It's because all sides - Ds and Rs - agreed Obama was a Christian in Wright's congregation when th...